So, you’ve thought about crossing the state of Florida through the Okeechobee Waterway (or maybe you just want to read about our experience doing so and see some cool pictures). You’ve done a little research and read about locks, short bridges, shallow depths in Lake Okeechobee, or rough conditions in Lake Okeechobee. You’re wondering how narrow the canal is. Where do you stop? Is there room for anchoring? How many days should you allow for the crossing? Are there convenient, easy stops at regular intervals for the passage? Never seen a lock? Are they difficult? What about pirates? Ok, that …

After almost 2 weeks in Ft Lauderdale on the mooring ball, we were ready to get moving again. We had ordered parts and repaired quite a few things that had broken in the Bahamas: new anchor windlass motor ordered and installed, new propane solenoid control panel, repaired primary winch, etc. We had also spent a lot of time at the beach, seeing friends, eating out, shopping, and going to a couple of movies. Definitely a great intro back to the States. The plan was to head north in the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, go as far as we felt like during …

The day after fixing the diesel, we readied Holiday to start moving north again. After nearly two months in the Bahamas and hurricane season looming, we were ready to start making our way back toward the US. But first, we decided to head to a Cay in the Exumas we hadn’t been to yet for a little R&R before getting into passage mode. The diesel ordeal had us pretty frazzled, and the way back would be a total of around 250 miles with some big water passages of the Tongue of the Ocean, the Great Bahama Banks, and of course, …

Leaving Lee Stocking Island through Rat Cay Cut, we exited the Banks side back into the Exuma Sound. The area from Lee Stocking all the way back up to Black Point had looked beautiful, but we decided to spend more time there and make more stops on the way back up. The sailing weather windows were good so we pressed on. Rat Cay Cut was an easy wide open exit, and the sailing was nice as we made our way south on a 5-6 hour passage. During our cruising so far, I haven’t put out my trolling lines all too …

We waited and waited at Palm Cay Marina near Nassau while the wind howled (mostly 20-25 knots) from eastern directions for about 10 days looking for a good weather window to head east to Highbourne Cay, our first stop in the Exumas. Granted, the waiting was awesome as we were securely tied to a dock in an awesome location with showers, a beautiful beach, and yummy restaurants just a short walk down the dock away. But, we couldn’t stay there forever (the marina fees were adding up), and we were excited to continue our journey to the beautiful islets of …

With one final sunset in the ol’ US of A, we got a restless night of sleep in Boot Key Harbor before waking up on March 31st prepared for our long voyage to the Bahamas. We took one final look at the weather and after a good bit of discussion decided to go ahead and go. It was Friday, and we had winds forecast 10-15 out of the SE. A good forecast. Saturday’s weather was even calmer and still out of the SE, but we weren’t sure how long the trip would take (somewhere between 30-40 hours if we kept …

Leaving Johnston Key, we skirted the boundary between the Gulf of Mexico and the flats and mangrove islands of the north side of the Lower Keys all the way east to Big Spanish Channel. The motor over was mostly bashing into the wind, but it was less than 3 hours to the turn into the channel. So, it wasn’t too bad. We had noticed on the charts that there was a section of Big Spanish Channel that was pretty shallow (possibly less than 5 feet, and we draw 4 feet 2 inches), and it was near low tide when we …